


The Hearts and Tongues of Dragons

by Inopportunist



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Multi, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-06 01:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inopportunist/pseuds/Inopportunist
Summary: Kaiba doesn't have to let go in order to keep going.





	1. Un-Transcend

**Author's Note:**

> A series of one shots post-DSOD, exploring Kaiba's life and relationships with the Yuugi-tachi.

In the end, they don’t finish their duel.

 

Kaiba is in the middle of calling out his attack, arm forward, palm out, when he spots Atems’ rueful smile. The sun shines bright behind the pharaoh’s form, like it had when Seto first arrived here. Which is odd, he thinks, because shouldn’t it be too low in the sky to come through the opening over the dais? But his eyes are aching in the gold-white haze and he can only see his opponent’s outline, can only hear something that sounds like his own name, a disheartened whisper beneath the roar of the light flooding his mind.

 

He wakes up in the half-crushed pod at the base of the elevator to the KC Space Station. There are medical personnel surrounding him, gathered in the crater he’s left where the launch point once was. They’re all staring, too afraid to touch him, and he wonders if his dimension jump was just a fever dream, a hallucination brought on by some kind of traumatic brain injury he’s just sustained.

 

It was real, he decides later, after he’s been placed in a hospital bed and Mokuba has spent two hours crying all over him. His left leg is splinted, pending an operation to pin his bones back together, and his ribs are bruised but the pain medication makes him feel like he’s floating instead of aching. He does, in fact, have a concussion, and he knows he isn’t thinking straight, but he also knows it was real, knows that Atem was real.

 

For the next week, he entertains the idea of rebuilding the space station, of trying again to reach the Pharaoh’s afterlife and challenge him again. He’s done it once, and things are always easier the second time around, and the next time he’ll be better prepared.

 

Then he admits to himself that he can’t justify spending that much money just to play a card game with a dead fifteen-year-old.

 

It’s enough, for now, to know that Atem truly does exist out there, somewhere in the universe. That the glimpses he caught in his Neurons VR System were not a fluke or his own wishful thinking.

 

He knows can keep going now.

 

And he thinks, not of Yuugi gently imploring him to move on, but of the stone stele in the museum, where the High Priest and the Pharaoh forever face each other in battle. And he knows, whether it’s in the afterlife or the next life, they’ll have their chance again, someday. 

 

He’ll make sure of it.


	2. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuugi isn't Atem and never could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba was definitely trying to bring Atem back just for the banter.

Yuugi is not the King of Games, not really, not anymore. And Kaiba enjoys reminding him.

 

They meet every other week now, to play games and talk business and catch up. Yuugi loses occasionally.

 

This isn’t quite a friendship, not on Kaiba’s part at least.

 

Yuugi is too nice. Yuugi does not challenge him like the Pharaoh once did. Does not yell or demand or smirk at him. Yuugi smiles soft smiles and tells him that there doesn’t  _ need _ to be a King of Games, not anymore.

 

Which, Kaiba recognizes, is true. There are no more Shadow Games, no more Penalty Games, no more half-demented spirits running around setting people on fire or taking control of their minds. The world had no use for boy-kings with the power to win every game.

 

And Yuugi doesn’t care about winning, the CEO discovers. 

 

He cares that he’s having fun. Which is how Mokuba plays, and probably how Kaiba should play if he actually wants to have friends. And maybe it’s good that he can’t take Yuugi seriously; he doesn’t get frustrated as easily. The pressure to win doesn’t build up and prompt his obsession liked it did with the Pharaoh and Kaiba’s blood pressure is better than it’s ever been.

 

But Yuugi doesn’t snark at him like Atem did. Doesn’t stand with the same strong posture. Doesn’t grin wickedly across the table. Doesn’t throw his shortcomings back into his face.

 

He misses that.


	3. Change of Address

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It would be difficult to write a convincing ghost story set on a sunny day in a big city." - Susan Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honda and Kaiba interact, like, never. And Kaiba would probably have trouble accepting that his brother is a well-adjusted human who has other things to do.

He gets the apartment during Mokuba’s second semester of college.

 

At first, he reasons that he’s only doing it because it’s closer to work. But he knows that the mansion’s emptiness is getting to him. And he hopes that Mokuba might visit more often if he’s closer to Domino University and not forty-five minutes away, out in the countryside.

 

It’s open and bright with tall windows overlooking the city, there are three bedrooms but he’s the only one who sleeps there.  It's beautifully modern and simple, but cavernous and hauntingly quiet. He plays music and leaves the television on while he works, and sometimes when he sleeps.

 

Mokuba does visit, on odd holidays, when he doesn’t spend his semester breaks at the beach house or abroad with his friends.

 

The emptiness is easier to ignore here, where he can leave the building and wander through shops and parks. Where the myriad noise of people living assures him that he's alive and awake and not hearing things in the mansion's quiet hallways. Even just standing out on the balcony watching the people and vehicles passing below is better than being out in the middle of nowhere with only his household staff for company.

 

He’s not alone. He refuses to feel lonely.

 

Kaiba sits on selling the mansion for a while. Certainly, it’s full of bad memories, and he’d be happy to be rid of any more reminders of Gozaburo. But he also thinks it’s not likely to sell. It’s old, tacky, and absurdly large and he doesn’t know of anyone who’d be will to put up with the cost of renovating and maintaining the place. And it takes a few months to move his private lab into Kaiba Corp.’s basement. (“What are you, a supervillain?” he thinks Atem would say, probably chuckling. And Kaiba can just about see the amusement in his eyes.)

 

It isn’t like he  _ needs _ the money from the sale. He owns it outright and even if property taxes are a bitch, they’re negligible in the grand scheme of things.

 

The solution comes when he runs into Honda one day while taking his lunch in a café downtown.

 

“You could probably, like, turn it into a hotel or something. Or a horse camp, the place has stables right?” Honda says, leaning back in his chair. Kaiba feels odd sitting across the table from him, mostly because the other man is in his police uniform. And there are definitely people staring at the pair of them. There are at least three in his peripheral with their phones out taking photos. 

 

He scoffs and Honda seems to take it in jest. Honestly, both of the suggestions are terrible. A hotel that far out of the city would be absurd. Then again, a camp... There’s a spark of something there.

 

Not horses, not in a place like Domino. But...

 

A camp, a place for kids to go on school holidays. He could even sponsor some kids from the orphanage to attend. The theme would have to be Duel Monsters, to match his amusement parks and he could renovate the whole building to function as a dormitory. He opens his notebook to a clean page and pulls out a pen.

 

“Uh, Kaiba? I need to head out, my break’s over. I’ll see you around?” Honda says, standing up.

 

The CEO nods, distracted. He’s taking notes, writing down his ideas as quickly as he can, not wanting them to slip away.


End file.
